Quinn waits on federal stimulus

February 08, 2009

As Gov. Pat Quinn today conducted the latest in a series of news conferences unveiling pieces of his new administration, concerns mounted over a more immediate need to demonstrate plans to cope with an ever-increasing state budget deficit.

Last week, Quinn acknowledged that any honeymoon after his replacement of ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich was short-lived as a result of a looming deficit that Comptroller Dan Hynes said could reach $9 billion by the end of the next budget year.

But today, Quinn said he would wait to see what Illinois would get from a congressional stimulus package and suggested that any decisive steps would wait until March, when he is scheduled to present lawmakers with a new state spending plan for the budget year that begins in July."You've got to have a blueprint, a rescue plan," Quinn said. "We'll have that next month when the budget address comes forward.

"We have to right now, I think, this week spend a lot of time on Washington."

A priority will be avoiding layoffs of state and municipal workers, Quinn said.

"We need to have as much help from Washington as possible because if states and localities have to lay off people, it's just aggravating a terrible situation. So we need their help, and I hope we get it," Quinn said.

Hynes said that while Quinn should be allowed some time to put together a staff of budget advisers, the comptroller has proposed to the governor some "immediate decisions on how to stem the tide and stop the bleeding" -- which Hynes said "has to happen."

"I already recommended to him that he call on his agencies to hold back spending, to reserve dollars, make any kind of adjustments they can even before the next budget so we can start to correct this," Hynes said on WGN-AM 720. "That's the kind of thing that a governor can do before assembling next year's budget, and, really, Blagojevich should have been doing it months and months ago."

House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) said Quinn should know that any federal stimulus dollars for Illinois won't be enough to cover the state's deficit.

"The stimulus money should be a component, but we can't wait on it," Cross said. "It's time to take any action available to start solving this."

Hynes said he believed that the new Democratic governor understood the state's fiscal problems "in general terms" but has "got to dig down into it."

The Democratic comptroller also said that before officials look at tax raises, they must start by cutting spending.

No stranger to calling Sunday news conferences, Quinn used the otherwise deserted Thompson Center to announce that Dan Grant, a staffer in his former lieutenant governor's office, was his pick to head the state's Veterans Affairs Department. About an hour after introducing the 28-year-old Iraq War veteran, Quinn's staff sent out a notice that he would be holding another news conference Monday to announce other top aides.